My apologies, but the old thread is closed: Can I use filtered tap water instead of my own "Pavlis" water?
[Moderator note: This new post was merged to the reopened topic]

Moka 1 Cup wrote: I have a Breville Dual Boiler. I make my own "Pavlis" water with potassium bicarbonate.
Reason is to avoid the need for descaling the Dual Boiler.

Last year I moved to a new place. When I test the tap water with a TDS meter, it measures 34-40 ppm.
We filter the tap water before drinking it with a Berkey water filter. Out of the Berkey the water measures not more than 42-44 ppm.
Can I stop using the "Pavlis" water and just use the water filtered with the Berkey, and still being confident that I do not have to descale the Dual Boiler?

homeburrero wrote: I think you could do that and be fairly confident about not having to descale, even if not perfectly confident as you would be with R Pavlis (100 mg/L KHCO3) recipe, which has zero minerals that might cause scale or scale-like deposits. But the Pavlis water may still be a better choice for other reasons, including corrosion, and to decide about that you'd need to know more about what comprises that ~ 40 ppm of your local water.

We are still using our Pavlis water however I am still pursuing the idea of simplifying the way we make espresso at home. For several reasons (including the fact that having more people doing it, sometimes you are not sure of who has done what...) .
Tomorrow I will receive a Profitec Pro 800 that will replace my Breville Dual Boiler. I don't have the option of plumbing it yet, so we will have to manually feed the tank. Probably a manual lever machine does not make any difference in terms of water quality and need to prevent scaling, however a new water report for my area is available and I wanted to see if the data this time could give more information about scaling and potential problem of corrosion. I have no idea of how to translate the information so I am asking for advice.
We would still filter the water with the same Berkey system.

https://www.cantonga.gov/home/showpubli ... 0494900000

More information are available here: https://gadrinkingwater.net/DWWPUB/JSP/ ... =GA0570001

Moka 1 Cup wrote:a new water report for my area is available and I wanted to see if the data this time could give more information about scaling and potential problem of corrosion. I have no idea of how to translate the information so I am asking for advice.
We would still filter the water with the same Berkey system.

The new report is still missing numbers you need to make a careful decision -- nothing there that tells you about hardness, alkalinity, and chloride. You need tose to evaluate scale and corrosion tisks.

Because your TDS is so low we can safely conclude that your limescale risk is low and you don't need softening. Given the low TDS your chloride is probably also reasonably low. If it were somehow high then you'd need to go to reverse osmosis and a remineralizer, otherwise you should be fine just using your Berkey filtered water. You might be able to get local chloride ion numbers by contacting your water utility. Be sure they know you are interested here in chloride and not chlorine.

Pat, thanks a lot.